Welcome Boost for CCS in Europe as White Rose Project Awarded €300m

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Scottish Carbon Capture & Storage (SCCS) welcomes today’s announcement that the European Commission has awarded the White Rose CCS Project up to €300 million from its NER300 funding programme.

The award is a further boost for the Yorkshire project, which secured design funding from the UK Government’s Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Commercialisation Programme in late 2013.

Dr Vivian Scott, SCCS, said: “CCS technology is crucial to reducing carbon emissions from power plant and industry across the UK, Europe and worldwide. The White Rose project will demonstrate that the technology can deliver low-carbon power from coal, and will develop a North Sea CO2 pipeline and storage infrastructure that can be utilised by other large CO2 emitters, such as energy-intensive industry, in the Yorkshire and Humber region.

“The NER300 programme was created to support CCS following the European Council’s resolution in 2007 to deliver ‘up to 12 CCS demonstration projects by 2015’. So far, this ambition has struggled to be realised, and only a handful of projects remain in development. We must not lose sight of these schemes – the ROAD project in the Netherlands, the Captain project in Grangemouth and Don Valley in Yorkshire – which, together with White Rose and the Peterhead project in Scotland, have the potential to initiate the development of the North Sea as a globally significant region for CO2 storage.

“EU Member States, the EC and new European Parliament are currently negotiating Europe’s 2030 climate and energy package. But while the EC recognises the need for CCS to help achieve the target of a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, it does not suggest any specific measures to support it.

“Proposals to strengthen the emissions trading scheme are welcome, but they will not deliver a carbon price sufficient to support CCS alone. Today’s announcement must be followed through with a strong commitment by heads of government to deliver CCS projects on coal and gas power plant, and on industry, and with tailored measures in the EU2030 package.”